Thank you so much to everyone who came to our town hall last week! About 100 constituents joined us to talk about the legislative session, the policies we’re working on over interim, and what comes next.

Thank you also to everyone who came out to talk about the Evergreen pool. It is clear that public pool access is important for our community. At the state level, our focus has been on the long-term aquatic needs of our region and passing a bill I sponsored to help ensure our Thurston County cities have the tools necessary to create a public facility district for a new pool. We can request state funding in the capital budget to help support the repair work necessary at the Evergreen pool, but even if it’s forthcoming, it would take more than a year from now to arrive and does not address operating expenditure needs. I am grateful to serve this engaged and passionate community. Also, a huge thanks to Mayor Dontae Payne for facilitating the discussion and our staff for helping this event take place.

Voting Rights Act, in Washington and around the country

Many of you have emailed me in the past week about the Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which will weaken voting rights protections for racial and ethnic minority groups across the country. While the ruling did not entirely strike down the federal Voting Rights Act, it made it much more difficult to challenge a district map that might be drawn to prevent a racial minority from being represented.

This is deeply concerning to me. The Voting Rights Act is one of the great achievements of the civil rights movement and must be defended.

It’s important to recognize that we have our own Washington state Voting Rights Act, passed in 2018 and strengthened in 2023 and again this year, which provides very similar protections as the federal Voting Rights Act for local elections. Our law is not affected by this Supreme Court ruling.

We’ve also taken numerous other steps to protect our elections and democracy. This year, we passed SB 5892 to protect sensitive voter information like your full birthdate, social security number, or driver’s license number, from disclosure. We passed a law supporting access to ballots for Tribal communities, military overseas voters, and others who face structural barriers, helping ensure participation is not determined by geography or circumstance, along with legislation to protect eligible voters from mass challenges and improper removal from voter rolls.

Our Secretary of State is fighting back against a lawsuit from the Trump administration demanding this personal and confidential information. This lawsuit isn’t a partisan issue — many Republican states like Georgia, Oklahoma, and Utah are being sued for this same information and fighting it in court just like we are. And we are currently in court with the Trump administration again over their attempts to undermine our popular and secure vote-by-mail system.

I am committed to preserving a safe, secure right to vote and a democracy where every voice can be heard. This is a crucial legacy of the civil rights era that we must still fight to preserve, and Washington state is doing what we can.

Protecting mifepristone access

As you may know, I sponsored important legislation passed into law this year expanding the availability of mifepristone pills that are essential to both medication abortions and miscarriage care. SB 5917 allows for the easier distribution of tens of thousands of state-owned mifepristone pills so patients who need mifepristone can get it, whether for an abortion or a miscarriage.

Recently, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Louisiana v. FDA to institute a national ban on shipping mifepristone directly to patients. This deeply concerning ruling has nothing to do with the safety and efficacy of mifepristone — which has been safely used by more than 5 million people since the FDA approved it more than 20 years ago — and everything to do with anti-abortion politicians wanting to chip away at abortion access nationwide. Many cases of medication abortion occur through telehealth appointments, and this ruling would be targeted directly at the patients who might not live near a reproductive health care provider or are otherwise unable to directly access effective reproductive health care.

There is some good news – the US Supreme Court has put a stay on this ruling while the case continues to move, and the mailing of mifepristone remains legal, at least for now. We are working with reproductive health care providers like Planned Parenthood to make sure my bill is being implemented and these pills are getting to patients who need them.

We cannot allow the rolling back of reproductive health care and abortion access in Washington state, and I am committed to taking action to protect our care and our right to choose.

Let me know what other issues you are hearing about and concerned with. You can always reach me at Jessica.Bateman@leg.wa.gov. Thank you so much!

– Jess